Environment and Climate News Podcast

On episode 108 of The Climate Realism Show, special guest James Taylor, president of The Heartland Institute and the founding director of Heartland’s Arthur B. Robinson Center for Climate and Environmental Policy, presents data refuting multiple climate change myths. James recently took part in a debate called "THE DUEL OF THE THEORIES ON GLOBAL WARMING" with Professor Harold R. Wanless, professor in the Department of Geography and Sustainable Development at the University of Miami.Taylor covers topics such as global temperatures, sea level rise, crop production, hurricanes, and tornadoes, citing data from peer-reviewed sources in the process.

Join host Anthony Watts, and The Heartland Institute’s H. Sterling Burnett as we do some play-by-play analysis. Plus, as always, the Crazy Climate News of the Week. Join us LIVE at 1 p.m. ET every Friday at Heartland's YouTube and Rumble channels for the kind of climate realism you can’t find anywhere else, and join the chat to get your questions answered, too.

https://www.youtube.com/theheartlandinstitute

https://rumble.com/account/content?type=all

Creators & Guests

Host
Anthony Watts
Anthony Watts is a senior fellow for environmental policy at The Heartland Institute. He is also the founder and publisher of WattsUpWithThat.com, one of the most-read site on climate science and policy in the world.
Host
H. Sterling Burnett
H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D., hosts The Heartland Institute’s Environment and Climate News podcast. Burnett also is the director of Heartland’s Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy, is the editor of Heartland's Climate Change Weekly email, and oversees the production of the monthly newspaper Environment & Climate News. Prior to joining The Heartland Institute in 2014, Burnett worked at the National Center for Policy Analysis for 18 years, ending his tenure there as senior fellow in charge of environmental policy. He has held various positions in professional and public policy organizations within the field. Burnett is a member of the Environment and Natural Resources Task Force in the Texas Comptroller’s e-Texas commission, served as chairman of the board for the Dallas Woods and Water Conservation Club, is a senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, works as an academic advisor for Collegians for a Constructive Tomorrow, is an advisory board member to the Cornwall Alliance, and is an advisor for the Energy, Natural Resources and Agricultural Task Force at the American Legislative Exchange Council.

What is Environment and Climate News Podcast ?

The Heartland Institute podcast featuring scientists, authors, and policy experts who take the non-alarmist, climate-realist position on environment and energy policy.

Joe Biden:

And that's what climate change is about. It is literally not figuratively a clear and present danger.

Greta Thunberg:

We are in the beginning of a mass extinction. The ability of c 02 to do the heavy work of creating a climate catastrophe is almost nil at this point.

Anthony Watts:

The price of oil has been artificially elevated to the point of insanity.

H. Sterling Burnett:

That's not how you power a modern industrial system. The ultimate goal of this renewable energy, you know, plan is to reach the exact same point that we're at now. You know who's tried that? Germany. 7 straight days of no wind for Germany.

H. Sterling Burnett:

Their factories are shutting down. They really do act like weather didn't happen prior to, like, 1910. Today is Friday.

Anthony Watts:

That's right, Greta, you pint sized antagonist. It is Friday, and this is our own personal Friday protest, the Climate Realism Show, episode number 108. Finally, at last, we've had a real debate, the duel of the series of global warming. I'm your host, Anthony Watts, senior fellow for environment and climate at the Heartland Institute. Joining me today, we have president of the Heartland Institute, James Taylor, who will be talking about that, real du duel, that debate.

Anthony Watts:

And we have, of course, doctor h Sterling Burnett, director of the Arthur b Robinson Center at the Heartland Institute on Climate. Linnea Lukin is on special assignment today. Welcome, guys.

James Taylor:

Hey. You on? Good to see you, Anthony.

Anthony Watts:

Yep. Likewise. Likewise.

H. Sterling Burnett:

Another Friday, another show.

James Taylor:

Did did you refer to Greta as a pint sized

Anthony Watts:

Antagonist. Antagonist.

James Taylor:

Pint sized. I love it.

Anthony Watts:

Well, if you actually go to the metric system. Anyway, so, on this episode, we're gonna talk about what James recently took part in, which was called the dual of theories on global warming. And this is an actual debate that was staged in Florida, with professor Harold r Wanless. He was with the Department of Geography, and Sustainable Development at the University of Miami. Each one of these people, James and and professor Ramless, got an hour to make their pitch.

Anthony Watts:

Ramless went first, and James won last. And in James' presentation, he covered topics like global temperatures, crop productions, hurricanes, tornadoes, works. So we're gonna get into all of that in just a moment, but first, I wanna do a regular feature, the crazy climate news of the week. Now who would have seen this coming? This is from the Energy Information Administration, and they say that for the first time since 2000, wind power went down.

Anthony Watts:

Wow. Look at that.

H. Sterling Burnett:

Yep. They they added, evidently, they've added last year, they added 6 gigawatts of new wind power, but they're taking so much wind offline about 33,000 turbines a year or more, that they've actually had a decline in wind power. You ain't gonna get to net 0 from here if you're losing

Anthony Watts:

net wind. Yeah. That's probably the reason it went away. Yep. It's amazing, though.

Anthony Watts:

You know? They they keep pushing about how wind power is the future, and it's it has been growing and growing and growing, and then all of a sudden, it's not. It's kinda like the whole electric vehicle dilemma. You know? Electric vehicles are the future, and they've been growing and growing and growing, and then all of a sudden, they're not.

Anthony Watts:

Well, I mean, you had

H. Sterling Burnett:

bad. You had one big hit in in Oklahoma with the Osage sued and said, you you can't take our land and our mining rights on our territory. The the state of Oklahoma approved it. The, I think, DOE approved it or the, the FERC, their, power regulator approved it. And I said, no.

H. Sterling Burnett:

You can't do that, and they took it to court. The court said, you're right. And 8084 or 86 turbines were shut down that day. Yeah. Big invest big investment, big turbines, they're coming down.

James Taylor:

Well, that increase in, in wind power generation up through 2022 is often pimped as a success story for wind power technology. It's not. It's a success story for renewable energy subsidies, for renewable energy mandates in the states, and for utilities that realize even if they have perfectly functional coal or natural gas power plants, if they, submit to the State Public Utilities Commission a plant and build out wind and solar, they're gonna get 10% guaranteed profit on the construction costs of those often multibillion dollar projects. So this is more about really financial perturbations of the free market, that allow this to happen.

H. Sterling Burnett:

You know? And, you know, it's all it's all in pursuit of this net zero. And, it turns out that to reach net 0 from mid mid, mid June of last year, when it was last calculated, they have to add something on the order of 5,000 wind turbines a week, every 5 days, actually. And it turns out they add about 3 to 5000 annually, so they're a little behind.

Anthony Watts:

Yeah. So speaking of things going down, the in the, we told you so department, ESG has been imploding this week. Yeah. Suffering nearly $9,000,000,000 in outflows in the 1st 3 months of 2024 alone, marking the worst quarterly outflow of ESG funds ever recorded since the whole crazy idea was ever started. How about that?

Anthony Watts:

Now that's the market saying, uh-uh. This doesn't make any

James Taylor:

sense. Yeah. And it's also action by groups like the Heartland Institute, and, we work with quite a few allies on this, rallying opposition to this. Of course, the ESG funds are going to fail in an open and free market. But when you've got BlackRock and State Street Vanguard acting in concert, act acting in a way that is conspiratorial to not allow any competition and ensure that investments are going to comply with ESG standards.

James Taylor:

That's a big problem. But what we've done at Heartland and with some of our allies is we've gone to the states. We've worked with governors, with state legislatures, to call this out for what it is. And to say, look. If you're gonna do this, we're not going to invest any of our state government funds in your entities and in other states to outright note that this is discriminatory and will no longer be allowed.

James Taylor:

So it's a success story for free markets and for fighting back against over assertive, woke government power.

H. Sterling Burnett:

And woke industry. I mean, you know, BlackRock's a private company. Bank of America's a private company that have decided to use other people's money to enforce their presidents, their board of directors views of how the world ought to run. The, it was interesting that picture that Anthony put up was was Larry Fink head of BlackRock, and he was the one out there saying, look, I've been pushing this. It's it's it's not gonna work.

H. Sterling Burnett:

It it it was never gonna work, because BlackRock's the one that's losing money the fastest. They they they they've shut 2 of their funds down. They're fighting in every state to say, no. No. No.

H. Sterling Burnett:

We're the RESG things aren't against oil and gas. RESG things aren't against, you know, aren't trying to, enforce Woking business. And and the thing is, they're using other people's money to do this. They're supposed to be active, passive investors trying to return maximum returns or minimum losses to the people whose whose portfolios are entrusted to them. Instead, they're using those portfolios for political cause to support their particular political causes, and it's falling apart.

Anthony Watts:

Yep. Well, we told you so right here on this show. Let's have a little humor. First of all, this is something Sterling found, and it was hilarious, and it it just it just encapsulates everything about Greta and her whole crusade. Can we see that full screen there?

H. Sterling Burnett:

Because you

Anthony Watts:

gotta see the caption at the bottom. Yeah. Bring that to full screen. 1 of these kids complained that her childhood was stolen. Gosh.

Anthony Watts:

Which one could it be? Yeah.

H. Sterling Burnett:

It it all those child all those child laborers there, producing cobalt and other minerals for green technologies, and she's the one, that's complaining. And the point you know, this is hooked to a new story this week for me. Arizona passed a bill that we helped, work on, through through the American Legislative Exchange Council that bans the purchase by states of, any technologies that cannot certify that they are made without the use of child or slave labor. You think that's a no brainer. Right?

H. Sterling Burnett:

Not in Arizona. It passed. Oh, it passed. And the governor of Arizona evidently lodged child and slave labor because she vetoed it.

Anthony Watts:

Yeah. You know, we've got dolphin free tuna, so why not, you know, child labor free EVs?

H. Sterling Burnett:

Well, it's banned here in the US. Evidently, Katie Hobbs thinks child labor is not good in the US, but it's okay, if it's if it's in developing countries that she doesn't have to see and she gets her fleet of electric vehicles. So Right. That's she she is morally absent without leave. She she has no ethics if she thinks it's okay for child labor to power her vision of the green future.

Anthony Watts:

Of course. Of course. That's the way it always has been with the left liberal elites that that push the climate agenda. You know? Anyway.

Anthony Watts:

And on a final note, this cartoon, which I think everyone everywhere can relate to. Having a productive day? Yeah. I'm producing carbon dioxide. Pause.

Anthony Watts:

Anything else? Well, a little bit of methane. Alright. So let's get on to our main topic. James, you attended this this luncheon, and you presented your side, and, of course, the professor prevented his side.

Anthony Watts:

Can you give us a little insight as to how that whole thing went? And then we'll, of course, wanna take a look at your presentation in just a couple of minutes. But just give us some background on how this got started, how it went, how it was received.

James Taylor:

Sure. I was contacted by the International Men's Club. This is a group that's based in Naples, Florida. It's primarily CEOs and upper management from companies international in scope. A majority of them, their companies were based overseas.

James Taylor:

A nice international flavor, and this would be what some folks would call a, an influence multiplier. These are people that have strong connections. These are movers and shakers. And they bring in for their monthly meeting, experts on various topics. And for April with Earth Day coming up, they decided to have a presentation on climate change.

James Taylor:

Now seeing that this is a, this is a topic that is hotly debated, they said, well, you know, we we we'd be in a little trouble if we chose one side and half the audience doesn't agree with it. So let's have a debate, which was a first for them. So they, invited professor Harold Wanless from the University of Miami to give a presentation, warning about a climate crisis, and then they asked me to give the other side. What was really interesting was before this debate, I went online and looked to see if professor Wanless had spoken on the topic before. Sure enough, I found, couple YouTube videos, the latest one being in 2019, as well as several idle either, several articles items in which he was quoted.

James Taylor:

And he focuses almost entirely on sea level rise. So, well, I I I knew I wanted to address that if he was gonna hit it, but I didn't want this to become okay. We're gonna debate the so called climate crisis, and he gets to pick the turf on just sea level rise. I wanted to make sure that people in the audience understood across the board that there is no climate crisis. And then giving special attention to sea level rise.

James Taylor:

Couple things that were very interesting here. First of all, with him going first, I almost kind of hope that when I'm debating people in in a public setting that the person on the other side is a bit of a jerk. Because it allows me to pull off the gloves and just really, really eviscerate them. Because almost every time they're presenting data that's doctored, that's incomplete, they don't present the latest data, they don't give citations, and it's easy to take to tear apart. However, doing so can make me kind of unlikable if I'm going for the throat.

James Taylor:

And sure enough, professor Wandless, he was a very likable, person. His demeanor was, very kindhearted, it seemed, and he's probably about 80 years old and maybe in the seventies. It's probably in the seventies. And so I I really couldn't be as, you know, just abrasive as might be called for when when when there is data that's not, accurate. So I had to make sure that I

Anthony Watts:

That's really nice that you were able to debate someone who has manners. Because a lot of times when we try to debate some of these global warming folks, these advocates, they are just downright nasty to us, you know.

James Taylor:

Yeah. Yeah. So I and I'll, add to that. About half the time when I'm in a debate or dueling presentations, doesn't happen much anymore because alarmists won't participate anymore. But it used to be rather commonplace a decade ago.

James Taylor:

About half the time, I would go up and pleasantly introduce myself, hold out my hand to shake hands, and the person would just look at my hand like it's a piece of garbage. Wouldn't even shake hands. For the half the time that that would happen, I would, you know, I I'm never going to be rude or, in any way abrasive unless someone starts it that way. So I'll keep a, courteous demeanor. And afterwards, just because I win the debate, half of them who shook my hand in the first place won't shake my hand afterwards.

James Taylor:

So, yes, it's good when we have courtesy and professionalism. But from a, winning a debate standpoint, I don't mind when the other side gets on their little attitude because I can do the same. But anyway, I had to maintain a pleasant demeanor, which was which was fine. Secondly, I noticed that before the debate watching his, his video, his presentation, that he focused quite a bit on on really three things. One was he claimed that there is going to be a rapid acceleration in sea level.

James Taylor:

I've seen online, in articles he's been quoted in as well as his talks. Generally, he'll say that we're on a pace for 2 to 3 feet of sea level rise this century right now, which isn't the case. And then he'll predict. He said it wouldn't be surprised if we get 8 feet of sea level rise this century. Keep in mind, we're on a pace right now for 12.94 inches of sea level rise this century.

James Taylor:

12.94. That's 1 foot. Not 2 feet, not 3 feet, not 8 feet. And then in the debate itself, in Naples, he said that his best guess is we will get 10 to 20 feet of sea level rise by the end of the century. Wow.

James Taylor:

The reason he says is there's going to be a rapid melting of the ice sheet on Greenland and Antarctica, and that this will occur very rapidly. Anyway, I'll address that. So I noticed that as something that he, he he makes a case for such rapid, ice melt and sea level rise. But also I noticed in his presentation when he tried to justify it, he showed a couple of charts. If my memory is correct, the charts he showed began in about 2002.

James Taylor:

And the one for Greenland ended in 2012, and the one for Antarctica ended in 2016. Well, 10 years of data for Greenland and 14 years for Antarctica, that's not very complete. Not only does it not go back very far, but it also his talk was in 2019. Why are you presenting data that ended in 2012 and 2016? So I went and looked up the actual data.

James Taylor:

And, of course, for Greenland, especially, really for Greenland and and Antarctica, there wasn't, any documented ice loss before then. And Greenland temperatures cooled from about the 19 twenties to about the year 2000. So they start the chart when only just 20, 25 years ago, you had some melting begin. But the reason why well, you know what? I don't wanna spoil it, but I was able to destroy his claims and his chart that he presented.

James Taylor:

So that being the case, I'll walk you through, the talk that I gave. So you can picture right now in front of, I forget the number of people there, approximately a 100, maybe a little more at the International Men's Club in Naples. And here is the the case for not a climate crisis.

Anthony Watts:

So the the real question is, did anyone throw any tomatoes or cabbages?

James Taylor:

No. No. And the audience was generally afterwards, during q and a, they were generally on my side, which was good to see. Cool. I had a couple people that weren't.

James Taylor:

They tried to do the little gotcha questions and ended up embarrassing themselves because, of course, a gotcha question means I get to give a gotcha answer. But, it was great.

Anthony Watts:

Alright. So we're all dying to see what you presented there.

H. Sterling Burnett:

Did you did you during the debate, did you and he have any back and forth? In other words, he got to ask you questions. You asked him questions?

James Taylor:

We didn't have a back and forth between him and me. And when I get to the sea level, part, I devoted the last probably 10 minutes to sea level rise because I suspected he would talk about that. I really made it a point not to not to say as bluntly as I could have that, you know, look, he cut off the data in 2012 or 2016 very conveniently. I I gave him the benefit of doubt that perhaps maybe he didn't realize there's more recent data. That's unlikely to be the case.

James Taylor:

But the very last question, someone had raised a question and they talked about, cherry picking data, and I made a point to say none. I'm glad you mentioned that because, people can cherry pick data. You'll notice that in my presentation, if there's global data, I present it. If there's not global but there's national reliable data, I present it. I'm giving you the whole time period.

James Taylor:

I'm trying to give you the whole perspective. And then, and then professor Wanless graciously said, I agree with James that the climate activists overstate their case in regarding extreme weather events. But I think James cherry picked his data regarding sea level rise, not presenting, you know, not addressing the sea level that occurred before 1993 or whatever it was. And he had presented one slide with data before then well, not data, with a chart before then with no attribution for the sources. And everything that I present, I presented attribution.

James Taylor:

So it was the one time that I got my hackles up a little bit at the end and said cherry picking data. You don't even have any attribution. I mean, everything I gave is right there. I mean, how am I supposed to address something for you don't tell me the source? Anyway

Anthony Watts:

Right.

James Taylor:

But he is a nice enough guy otherwise.

Anthony Watts:

Okay. So let's see your presentation. I'm Okay. I'm just coughing up the bit to see it.

James Taylor:

Fantastic. Well, first of all, and this is very important for everybody watching today. If there's only one thing that you can take away and remember from this presentation, it's this. You cannot have a climate crisis when temperatures are unusually cold, and let me repeat that. There cannot be a climate crisis when temperatures are unusually cold.

James Taylor:

The whole basis of the asserted climate crisis is that a heating of the earth from carbon dioxide is putting the earth in some unprecedented territory where humans and nature cannot cope. This is unprecedented. It's dangerous. We're out of the boundaries of what we could normally expect, but that's simply not the case. So what you see here, this chart, this is reported and this is data from the European Science Foundation's Greenland ice core project.

James Taylor:

This was published in the peer reviewed science journal Science. And this is a temperature history that was derived from Greenland ice cores, not controversial at all. On the top left, you see, from the far left is temperatures a 100000 years ago. And you see the ongoing glaciation of cooling temperatures advancing ice sheets until about 20000 years ago, temperature started to warm. And then at the far right of that upper left chart, you see the temperatures of the past 10000 years.

James Taylor:

So if you look on the on the upper right chart, you see that expanded. On the far left of that chart 10000 years ago, on the far right you see temperatures today. Do you see that little squiggly line at the far right of that upper right chart? That little squiggly line at the very end of the chart. That is all of the warming of the past 150 years.

James Taylor:

That is all of the warming that we are told is unprecedented, experimental. The earth has a fever. What you see is that, yeah, temperatures have warmed a little bit in the past 150 years. They've warmed from the coldest period of the past 10000 years, and they have to keep warming for at least 2 or 3 more centuries before we reach temperatures that predominated 4000, 5000, 6000, 7000, 8 1000 years ago. Now that time period 4 to 8000 years ago is very important because that's the time period during which human civilization first developed and began to flourish and take root.

James Taylor:

This is where modern civilization as we know it, well, human civilization as we know it, this is the roots of that. With far less technology than we have today, human civilization developed and flourished at temperatures 2 3 degrees Celsius warmer than today. Again, you cannot have a climate crisis when temperatures are unusually cold. For most of the human experience, the human civilization experience, temperatures have been warmer than today. The bottom slide.

James Taylor:

You see temperatures over the past 2000 years. Notice a 1000 years ago during the medieval warm period. Again, temperatures were much warmer than today. That's a time period when you had villages and pastures in Greenland that are currently covered by snow and ice. When we do get a little melty of the snow and ice in Greenland, it's revealing areas that used to be warm enough for the vikings to raise villages and raise cattle.

James Taylor:

Again, temperatures are unusually cold, not warm. That's the most important point to remember. That in and of itself destroys the notion of a climate crisis. Now here this chart is cut and pasted directly from the very first assessment report by the United Nations intergovernmental panel on climate change. It validates the previous slide.

James Taylor:

In the middle so in the middle chart, you see again that little bit of warming at the far right, that very little bit at the end, that's all of the warming in the past 100 50 years. Even the United Nations intergovernmental panel on climate change acknowledges that temperatures have been significantly warmer than today for most of the time period that human civilization has existed. No climate crisis. The bottom chart, again, from the United Nations itself. Notice the temperatures bottomed out in the 1600.

James Taylor:

Then you had a step increase in the 1700. Temperatures plateaued and then a step increase in 1900. Remember that pattern because here, this is, taken from Geophysical Research Letters, peer reviewed Science Journal. Scientists, what they did is they looked at the varying output from the sun. The sun doesn't produce the same amount of energy all the time.

James Taylor:

Sometimes it produces more energy, sometimes less. When it produces more energy, that's more heat reaching the earth. So what scientists discovered is that the sun's output reached the low during the 1600, increased during the 1700, plateaued, and then increased again after 1900. This is the sun's output. Remember the last slide?

James Taylor:

Look at this chart. It's the exact same pattern as we see in this bottom chart of temperatures. The United Nations report temperatures followed almost exactly solar output from the year 1600 through the year 2000. The Sun has always been the primary driver, at least if you're talking on a scale of centuries or even decades, of climate change during the period of human civilization. Yes.

James Taylor:

Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. Yes. If you add more to the atmosphere, you should, all other things being equal, get some warming. But that is not the primary driver. It factors in at the margins.

James Taylor:

It's the sun that's the dominant factor and continues to be. This chart here, what you see in blue, blue is the average global temperature going back 600000000 years ago here on Earth. In black, the black line is atmosphere carbon dioxide. 2 things stand out in this chart. First of all, is that there is no correlation whatsoever between atmosphere carbon dioxide and global temperatures.

James Taylor:

I mean, you can't find that anywhere. Secondly, just importantly just as importantly, and as you'll see in the black line on the far right where we are today, our atmosphere is absolutely starved of carbon dioxide. The amount of carbon dioxide that we've added to the atmosphere brings our current levels to about 420 parts per million. Scientists tell us that before the industrial revolution, the atmosphere carbon dioxide level was anywhere between a 180 parts per million to 280 parts parts per million. That's where it had bottomed out.

James Taylor:

Okay. Even with the additions that we've had, you can see in this chart that typically, carbon dioxide levels on the earth have been a 1,000 parts per million and above. We're not even halfway to what should be the case during normal conditions. Also, just as importantly, if carbon dioxide levels had reached 150 parts per million, if it had gotten down that low, that's the point where you no longer get photosynthesis. All plant life dies and therefore all life and all its forms dies out here on earth.

James Taylor:

We came perilously close to that before the industrial revolution. If we are going to suck out carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, like climate activists propose, they wanna put us back to a level where we are perilously close to any all life on Earth. Carbon dioxide levels, just like temperatures, are not unusually high. In fact, they're unusually low. A little bit more, just like with warmer temperatures, will be and has always been a good thing as I'll show here shortly.

James Taylor:

I'm gonna skip through these next couple yeah. But I'll skip through these charges for time constraints. Here very quickly, the squiggly lines, these are the United Nations climate models showing how much temperature increase their models predict. The solid red line, that's the average of those models. In green, you have the observed temperatures.

James Taylor:

What you see is that temperatures have risen at approximately half the pace as predicted by the United Nations climate models. It illustrates a couple good points. Number 1, climate models are not scientific proof. Climate models are not even scientific evidence. They're merely conjecture that's going to reflect the assumptions that are programmed into them.

James Taylor:

Secondly, to the extent that we have climate models, whether it's temperatures or extreme weather events, they have always failed. They've always failed by predicting too much harm. So when we hear in the future, scientists say that this will happen, scientists predict this, climate models predict that. Take it with a heavy grain of salt because models that have failed in the past are likely to fail in the future. Now oftentimes, we'll hear in the news media.

James Taylor:

I've seen this for, I don't know, trout in Montana, for apples in Wisconsin, for syrup in Vermont, whatever it may be, assertions that stifling temperature in the United States because of climate change, global warming are causing all sorts of horrible harms. And when you look into the actual, whether it's maple syrup production or apple production or cranberry production, what you normally see is that actually production is increasing as temperatures warm. But regardless, even if there were to be some cases where for one reason or another, whether it's drought or anything else, if it might hypothetically be declining, it's not because of rising temperatures here in the United States, at least not in the past 20 years, because here this chart is from the, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA. Climate reference network. This is the most accurate uncorrupted temperature system, that is in existence here in the United States.

James Taylor:

They put it into, operation in January of 2,005. 20 years worth of data, here are the temperatures from left to right, and the right is where we are today. You don't see any warming. If there were any negative climate harms or rising temperatures, it didn't happen in the last 20 years. And if you see any media articles claiming that, realize it's full of garbage.

James Taylor:

There has been no warming here in the United States for the past 20 years at least. Now getting to some of the extreme weather events that we often hear about. Hurricanes. This is one we're going to hear about coming up in the next few months because hurricane season starts next month. Doctor Ryan Maue using, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data, has charted hurricane activity going back to 1980.

James Taylor:

What you see on the top line is the number of all hurricanes globally, and the bottom line is major hurricanes globally. Now you don't see really any trend at all. If you look at the number of total hurricanes, you see a modest decline. If you look at the major hurricanes, you might see a slight increase. Take the 2 together, you have no trend.

James Taylor:

That's going back to 1980, 40 plus years of data. When we hear that global warming is supercharging hurricanes, making it more frequent, more likely to occur, That's simply not the case. Now you might be saying, okay, that's data from 1980. 40 years is a decent amount of data, but, of course, the planet's been warming for, you know, 100, 150 years at least. What about that?

James Taylor:

Well, here are scientists in the peer reviewed journal Nature, charted tropical cyclones, which is tropical storms and hurricanes, going back to the year 1850. The top left chart is the one that's most important. That's the one that tracks on a global basis, the numbers of hurricanes and tropical storms. The far left is 1850, and the far right is today. What you see is that there has been a dramatic decline in the number of hurricanes since at least the year 1900.

James Taylor:

The data that, Ryan Mowery reported at the far right of that upper left hand chart showing essentially no trend or maybe a slight decrease, that continues a trend going back over a 100 years of no worsening in hurricanes. In fact, hurricanes are becoming less frequent and severe as temperatures warm. Here are some recent hurricane facts. I was speaking in Florida, so some of these will be specific to Florida. The United States recently went to more than a decade, 2005 to 2017, without a single major hurricane.

James Taylor:

That's category 3 or higher. That is the longest such period in recorded history. If climate change is making hurricanes more frequent and more supercharged, we shouldn't have a record set for the longest period without a major hurricane strike. The United States recently experienced a fewest number of hurricane strikes of any size in any 8 year period in recorded history. Florida recently concluded an 11 year period without a landfalling hurricane of any size, and that was the longest such period in recorded history.

James Taylor:

The Gulf of Mexico recently recorded its longest hurricane free period in recorded history. And Florida recently went an 11 year period without a major hurricane strike, which is also the longest such period in recorded history. Look. Climate change is not going to make all hurricanes disappear. It would be wonderful if it could.

James Taylor:

Can't do that. But the fact that some hurricane still occur doesn't mean climate is causing them. In fact, if you look at it by any measure, what you see is that, yes, some hurricanes will still occur. But as the earth warms, hurricanes are becoming less of a threat than they were beforehand. Tornadoes.

James Taylor:

It's tornado season. We've been undergoing tornadoes here in the Midwest just in the past week, some very strong violent ones. When you hear about a tornado striking, you will often hear about climate change perhaps being a factor. Well, that's simply not the case. This is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's own chart and data.

James Taylor:

This is f three and stronger tornadoes, the ones that kill people, the ones that destroy entire towns. These are the ones that we're concerned about. What you see on the far left is the year 1970. On the far right, you have 2020, the last year for which I have the data. And what you see is a significant decline in major tornado strikes.

James Taylor:

Again, there's no connection other than perhaps climate change making tornadoes less frequent and less severe. This is another NOAA chart. You can see by the insignia in the top left of the chart, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Oftentimes, we hear that because of climate change, it's causing more drought. Well, that's simply not the fact.

James Taylor:

This is data throughout the entire United States. On the far left, you have, 19 excuse me, 1895. And then every single month charted until where we are today on the far right. Now two things to to notice here. The line dividing the green and the yellow, that's 0%.

James Taylor:

The green bar is going up. That's the percentage of the country that NOAA defines as being very wet. So then they have lines running across 20%, 40%, 60% of the country being very wet. You really don't see much of a trend at all. You might see a slight increase in recent decades, which is again counteracting the notion that we're seeing more drought because of climate change.

James Taylor:

If anything, a little bit to the opposite. Now the yellow bar is going down. Again, each bar represents a month from 18/95 through today. The further down the bar goes, the greater the percentage of the country that's experiencing drought. Now this is remarkable.

James Taylor:

Again, drought is one of the biggest things we hear about for climate change. What you see is that until about the year 1960, you would see multiple times virtually every decade where more than 40% of the country was experiencing very dry conditions as reported by NOAA. Now look at since 1960. It almost never occurred. In fact, we're currently undergoing the longest period in recorded history, by far, no other periods even close, where we didn't have more than 40% of the country experiencing very dry conditions.

James Taylor:

Yes, there still will be drought here and there. Droughts still occur, they always will. But they are becoming far less severe and far less frequent as temperatures warm. Couple facts here and a chart on the chart. This is again the chart is cut and pasted from Noah itself.

James Taylor:

It's not my data. It's not my friend's data. It's Noah's data and Noah's chart. Going back from 18 95 to 2020, the same period as that chart I just showed you, the areas, the very few areas that you see in yellow and red, that's where there has been a declining trend of precipitation during the past century plus. Where you see green, that's where you see more precipitation.

James Taylor:

Again, the notion that climate change is causing more droughts is simply preposterous and contradicted by the data. Couple notes on the far left. In 2017, NOAA reported that the smallest percentage of the country experiencing drought ever recorded occurred in April 2017. We'd never had so little of the country experiencing drought. It was down to 6.1%.

James Taylor:

Then just 2 years later in 2019, NOAA reported that record was broken. The amount of the country experiencing drought was down to 2.3%. Again, if there's a drought in some small part of the country and climate activists try and say it's caused by climate change, no. It's not. It's exactly the opposite.

James Taylor:

We're getting less drought as temperatures warm. The reason for that, by the way, when you're getting warmer temperatures, you have more evaporation over bodies of water, especially the oceans. And then as wind patterns take that air over land masses, you get more more rainfall. So, again, as temperatures warm, we're getting less drought, not more. And that correlates to wildfires.

James Taylor:

When there's a wildfire somewhere, again, wildfires have always occurred. The Earth's a large place. Climate change can't make them entirely disappear, so there still will be some. Whenever there is one, they blame climate change. It says and they say climate change is making wildfires more frequent and severe.

James Taylor:

Simply not the case. On the right, this is a chart. This is cut and pasted from NASA's own website. The few areas in red and orange is where there is a decline in wildfires. The areas that you see in blue or excuse me.

James Taylor:

Red and orange is where there's been more acres burned, and blue is where you see a substantial decline in the number of acres burned. Essentially, NASA satellites have been precisely measuring. Since 1998, they've been able to measure precisely the amount of land burned globally globally by wildfires. What they report is that there was a 24% decrease in the land burned by wildfires. Now that's 1998 to 2015.

James Taylor:

They haven't reported data since then. Probably because people like me have been pointing out that there's been a decrease in wildfires, which goes against the official bureaucracy narrative from NASA. But that's the data we have. As temperatures warm, wildfires are becoming less frequent and less severe. Now you might say, okay.

James Taylor:

That's 17 years worth of data. Is that really enough to to make a case for? I mean, we know the temperatures have been warming for a 100, 150 years. That would be a good question. It's one I had because I wanna challenge my own assumptions.

James Taylor:

And here's what I discovered. Scientists reporting in the peer reviewed journal of geophysical research. They looked at wildfire data glow globally going back to 1901. What they found it is that there has been a quote, notable declining rate of burned area globally for more than a century. So whether we're talking 17 years or a 107 years, we see as temperatures warm, wildfires are becoming less frequent and less severe.

James Taylor:

Because I was in Florida, I presented data specific to Florida, but this is typical of other states. Yes. Temperatures have warmed modestly during the past century, century and a half. Of course, in the last 20 years, we haven't seen that in the United States a little bit globally. But it's often portrayed as well.

James Taylor:

This is causing more extreme heat waves and summertime temperatures that are too hot to survive. Take a look at this data from Florida. This is again reported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. These are the number of days with a high temperature above 95 degrees. So the number of very hot days, you don't see any increase at all.

James Taylor:

In fact, you see a slight decline over the past 80 plus years. Now the reason for that in Florida as is the case in most other states is the warming that we're getting is happening primarily at nighttime, not during daytime highs. And oftentimes, that's during winter. So the very coldest of cold winter nights aren't quite as frigid as it otherwise would be. That's not a horrible thing.

James Taylor:

Most people welcome that. And that's the case in Florida as well. You don't have an increase in very hot days. You have a modest decrease in very hot days. Precipitation, much like with the United States as a whole, you don't see a decline in precipitation.

James Taylor:

You don't see signs of increasing drought. Here, you don't see much of a trend at all. Of course, nationally, you see a little bit of increase in precipitation. So in Florida, the notion that we're getting scorching temperatures and more drought simply is contradicted by the data. Now this chart here, I mentioned at the beginning.

James Taylor:

Do you remember the one point, the one slide I wanted to re wanted you to remember if you only remembered 1. You cannot have a climate crisis when temperatures are unusually cold. This might be the second most important. This chart here, this is data from The Lancet, peer reviewed medical science journal. Scientists examined mortality, deaths from around the globe, from country after country.

James Taylor:

You see them Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, etcetera. And they determined that a little over 7% of global deaths were caused by temperatures that were less than optimum. That's a lot. 7%. That's 1,000,000 per year.

James Taylor:

But here's the part that is stunning. What they found is that approximately 20 times more people die because of temperatures that are too cold versus temperatures that are too warm. So in each of these countries, the dark blue bar, that's the number of people dying from extreme cold. The light blue bar is the number of people dying from persistent moderate cold. The pink bar is the people dying from persistent moderate heat.

James Taylor:

The red bars number people dying from extreme heat. As temperatures warm, the greatest impact of moderately warming temperatures is to reduce the consistent pervasive moderate cold where it does occur around the world, when it does occur. When people talk about climate change killing people, it's exactly the opposite. Climate change is addressing and mitigating by far the biggest factor killing people in terms of temperatures. It's cold temperatures.

James Taylor:

As temperatures modestly warm, we will be saving, we continue to be saving tens of thousands, 100 of thousands, perhaps even millions of lives each year by eliminating the the deaths number of deaths due to cold. Yeah. Small number of people died to excessive heat. Twenty times as many died to excessive cold. Modestly warming world is perfect for decreasing the death rate of people around the globe.

James Taylor:

Crop production. We often hear that because of climate change, we are seeing crop failures all over the world. This is why we have all these migrants. They can no longer feed themselves because of drought. Well, we know drought is not an issue.

James Taylor:

We saw that. But let's look at the wrong numbers for crop production. This is the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization's own chart cut and paste it from their own page. What you see is that 10 years ago in the far left, you see the crop production then. This is cereal production.

James Taylor:

That's rice, wheat, and corn. The big three. And then on the far right, you have the crop production today. You see that almost every year, you see new records being set for the amount of crops produced. By the way, this chart, you go back 20, 30, 40 years, it's the same thing.

James Taylor:

As temperatures warm, you see record crop production almost every year. Now there are other factors involved. The use of fertilizers, which by the way most climate activists suppose, increases in technology, they all help. But when you see in the news the climate change is causing crop devastation. It's exactly the opposite.

James Taylor:

And when we have more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that helps crops. Carbon dioxide is plant food. There's a reason why horticulturists pump, pump it into, greenhouses. Longer growing seasons, fewer frost events, more precipitation, they all contribute. But the real the but the reality is that crop production is setting new records almost every year as temperature is modestly warm.

James Taylor:

You see the same thing for vegetation as a whole, not just crops. On the right, that's a chart cut and pasted directly from NASA's own website. Notice that everything I'm showing you is from official government sources or official data. What you have on the right is a map, that is generated by NASA satellites. They've been measuring the amount of foliage throughout the earth going back for approximately 35 years.

James Taylor:

What they find is that where you see the red and yellow, that's where you see a decrease in vegetation intensity. Where you have the green, that's where there's been an increase. What you see is that there has been a substantial increase in vegetation due predominantly according to NASA to more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide carbon dioxide is the gas of life, and we're seeing that throughout the world. More vegetation.

James Taylor:

It means more life. This is a wonderful thing. Again, documented by NASA itself. Now let's assume for the sake of argument that none of this sticks with you and you still fear that we're facing a climate crisis. If you want to address reducing carbon dioxide emissions, given presentations in Naples, Florida or anywhere else in the United States, or really frankly the Western world, is pointless.

James Taylor:

Here we have data on carbon dioxide emissions going back to the year 2000. The blue line that you see modestly declining, those are United States emissions. The gray line are Chinese emissions. The orange line is global emissions. The United Nations has reduced carbon dioxide emissions 21% this century, and yet the rest of the world has increased emissions 47%, with most of that increase coming from China.

James Taylor:

If you want to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, if you fear climate crisis, it does not matter whether we completely eliminate carbon dioxide emissions here in the United States, because, again, Chinese emissions are rising so so rapidly. If you want to change the world by reducing carbon dioxide emissions, whether you think that's a good thing or not, the answer is in China, not the United States. Any Green New Deal programs or net zero programs hit here in here in the USA are absolutely pointless even if you believe carbon dioxide is the control now for climate, and that's a bad thing. Okay. Now sea level.

James Taylor:

As I mentioned at the beginning of, of this program that professor Wanlas focused almost entirely on sea level. So I wanted to make sure that I addressed that. Now prior to the debate, I had seen where he had forecast 8 feet of sea level rise, this century. So I pointed out, first of all, sea level currently is rising at just 1 foot per century, not 8 feet. If 8 feet of sea level rise is going to be the, the baseline for all of these asserted harms.

James Taylor:

He showed charts of how much flooding would occur, how Florida would be underwater, Miami's gone at 8 feet of sea level rise. Well, you have to show that 8 feet of sea level rise is realistic. In this case, it's not. We would need to see an 8 fold increase in the pace of sea level rise to reach that. Now at the present pace of 1 foot per century sea level rise, that's been about the case, roughly 1 foot per century, since the mid 1800.

James Taylor:

People have managed that quite well with lesser technology than we have today. There's no reason to believe we can't manage an ongoing increase of 1 per per century when we've done so for nearly 200 years. As I mentioned in the first slide, the one I want you to remember, temperatures were much warmer during the Holocene climate optimum. By the way, it's called optimum because that's what was optimal for life on Earth. 4000 to 8000 years ago, temperatures were much warmer.

James Taylor:

Yet in that time period, there was not an 8 feet sea level rise. So why would we get that today with much less, temperature increase and much lower temperatures? And when anybody predicts 4 feet, 5 feet, 6 feet, 8 feet, or more of sea level rise, realize that those are outlier predictions. Not even the alarmist United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts 8 feet of sea level rise. And by the way, I mentioned during the debate, professor Wanda said he expects 10 to 20 feet.

James Taylor:

Before our debate, he was keeping his predictions to 8 feet. During our debate, he made it 10 to 20 feet.

H. Sterling Burnett:

Can I just step in for a second, James?

James Taylor:

Sure thing.

H. Sterling Burnett:

So, you know, on the sea level rise, everyone uses all context. We sea levels have risen 400 feet since the last into the last ice age. Many nations have dealt with rapid sea level rise. And almost every year, you find, as the ice retreats in some glaciers or, as they do sampling in Greenland, they say, oh, we found these tools here. Well, that means the ice was that low, 4000 years ago from when those tools were there.

H. Sterling Burnett:

So, this isn't unusual. We've we've found what they called it. They called it a highway over in, I wanna say Lapland, where for 100 of years, people have been traversing this area, except it was covered with ice for, a couple of 1000 years, because the ice expanded and, and it's now shrunk back to where it was before. Right. And, you know, finally, even in Greenland, you know, they talk about, oh, Greenland ice melting.

H. Sterling Burnett:

Well, it turns out when they look at the the the ice melts and they find these, the shell accretions, And it turns out that the animals that were there is like, well, these normally exist in, in water that's, quite a bit deeper, which means the ice was or on land that's that's, underwater. So this means that, the water was here before. The ice wasn't. It it's they just skip science. They skip science.

James Taylor:

Right. And and sea level is not something that has been steady, even relatively steady for long periods ever before. At the end of the last ice age glaciation period, when temperatures warmed, you had the 400 plus feet of sea level rise. During the past 8 to 10000 years when temperatures, were warmer, sea level was higher than today. And, sea level has bounced around, throughout the throughout, the Earth's history.

James Taylor:

So the notion that somehow, we'll be able to keep that from ever happening again simply defies, the Earth's history. So I'll I'll keep going here on this presentation here. This is data from, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration utilizing NASA satellite instruments. These instruments, what they do is they measure, the amount of water in the oceans using gravitational pull. And what they find is that, they said there's been an increase of 3.5 millimeters per century, But part of that is, negated by the fact that as ice melts, as there has been some melting of ice from Greenland, Antarctica, and really, from the last glaciation, you have the earth rebounding.

James Taylor:

So in reality, what you're getting is about 3.2 millimeters per year of sea level rise. That's a pace of, I believe, it's 12.94 inches per century. Now this data, the precise measurements go back to 1993. And what you see is that the line is rather steady. You can make an argument there's been a slight increase in the pace, in the recent, you know, 5, 10, 15 years.

James Taylor:

But, again, that would be slight and that's just a small period. Even if that were to sustain itself, instead of 12.94 inches maybe you get 15 inches of sea level rise this century. In other words, you have a pretty state pretty steady pace of sea level rise that is not at all unusual. It's in line with what has been the case, in decades and indeed centuries past. No acceleration, at least no significant acceleration that we can see.

James Taylor:

Now to get to 8 feet of sea level rise this century, I took on the right hand chart there from 1993 until 2024. That's the documented sea level rise from the chart on the left. And then I juxtapose or extend it out how much of a sudden acceleration immediate. By the way, if it doesn't happen immediately, then that curve has to become even steeper to read 8 feet each to reach 8 feet of sea level rise a century. This is what professor Wanless was arguing in all of his slides showing how much inundation would happen on the coastlines.

James Taylor:

Well, you would need that sudden acceleration to such a degree for that to happen. Folks, it's simply not happening. It hasn't happened in the past as you see on the far left chart. It hasn't happened that type of acceleration over the past 30 years. It hasn't happened before then.

James Taylor:

There was no reason why that would suddenly be the case. This chart here, this is from Battery Park, Manhattan, New York. It's the longest sea level gauge in the United States. It goes back to 1856, I believe it is. And what you see again is you see the same pace, approximately 1 foot per century.

James Taylor:

There's no acceleration at any time period, and at least none that is, outside just the back on a small noise. During his presentation, professor Wandless presented a graph with no attribution, asserting that sea level rise significantly increased in the 19 thirties, significantly increased again in the 19 sixties, and that from the 1993 period on. Coincidentally, just when just before, NASA satellite could document it, there was another substantial increase in pace. We certainly don't see that at the longest sea level gauge here in the United States. There aren't that many globally to go back that far.

James Taylor:

Other shows essentially the same thing. Now we were in Florida, so I presented sea level data for Florida. Virginia Key, it's essentially Miami. You have sea level rise going back to 1930. You see a rather modest again, 1 foot per century, 3.16 millimeters per century.

James Taylor:

They're near the top. That's approximately 1 foot per century. You can make the argument there's been a very slight increase in the past decade. Of course, we've seen, for example, during the 19 eighties, you saw a similar, increase and then it smoothed out, in fact, declined. Even if that pace were to continue, you might be a little bit more than a foot per century, but nothing substantial.

James Taylor:

Saint Petersburg, Florida going back to 1945. Again, the same thing. You might say, again, 10 years is the past 10 years. You might see some increase, not that much. Again, rather steady sea level increase.

James Taylor:

People dealt with it fine. Naples, where we held our debate. Their data goes back to 9 30. You see the same thing. Again, if you wanna make hay of the last 10 years, it's only 10 years and it's not that substantial.

James Taylor:

And again, from the global data, that I showed earlier, right here, you just don't see that happening. You don't see any significant increase. So, again, what you're seeing is that you have on the left, you see the documented sea level rise. You see that on the right going from 1860s to 2023. Do we really believe that we are likely to see that dramatic monumental increase starting today?

James Taylor:

Again, highly unlikely. Now I mentioned earlier a couple of slides and data that professor Wallace presented. And again, if my memory serves correct, he presented data from 2002 to 2012 in Greenland, 2002 to 2016 in Antarctica. So I went and looked for the actual data, and I found this chart and data on NASA's own website. And if you can expand on that slide for me, Andy, you could see the chart a little bit better.

James Taylor:

So this is data from NASA that goes on the far right to the end of last year, 2023. 2012 is right about in the middle of that chart. And it starts in 2002 because before then, you really didn't have any ice melt. You had cooling temperatures going back many decades. So professor Wanless presented this data going from the far left to about the middle of the chart.

James Taylor:

And in the middle of the chart, you see a little bit of an acceleration downwards for about 3 or 4 years. And that's where he ended his chart. And he said, this shows that there's an acceleration of ice loss in Greenland. This supports my thesis that we're about to have a dramatic rapid ice melt that's going to cause the pace of sea level rise to become now 10 or 20 feet per century. But here's the actual data that I found that was available to professor Wanless if he had looked for it.

James Taylor:

I imagine he might have. I often debate people that cut off data when it's inconvenient for them. I don't know whether professor Mondless just didn't update his slides or not. But what we see is that from the middle of the chart onwards, you see a slower pace of ice loss in Greenland than was the case from 2002 to 2012. So whatever the reason, the recent data didn't appear in his presentation, the actual updated data from NASA itself shows that there's been a deceleration of ice loss from Greenland, not a rapid increase.

James Taylor:

The same holds true for Antarctica. On the left is the Greenland data, which I just presented. On the right is Antarctica. This is data from Geophysical Research Letters, peer reviewed science journal. What they do is they show again starting in 2002.

James Taylor:

And on the far right, you have, in this case, 2020. And this is Antarctica on the right. 2016 is where professor Wandless ended this chart. 2016 is where temperatures bottomed out in that slide from about 2006 to 2016. Since then, you've had no ice loss whatsoever.

James Taylor:

If anything, there's been some increase in ice mass. Again, whatever the reason, professor Wanless's data ended in 2016, the data since then completely contradicts his notion that there is an acceleration of ice ice loss in Antarctica. If you're going to say that there's going to be 10 to 20 feet of sea level rise because of a rapid dramatic cataclysmic loss, sudden loss of ice in Greenland and Antarctica. You're seeing the opposite signs right now. Climateataglance.com for those of you that are not familiar with it.

James Taylor:

Much of the data in this presentation comes from that book. You can order it online at amazon.com. You can also find it online at climate ataglance.com. The entirety of the book is available digitally for free, And you can also download our app, Climate at a Glance, the app. So you can pull everything up in just a couple seconds where we debunk the most asserted climate alarms that are making the rounds today.

James Taylor:

So with that, I'll skip you that because you're familiar with climate realism.com. That's my presentation. So Anthony Sterling have at it. Tear it apart. Wow.

James Taylor:

Make whatever comments you want. But it was a great success. After the debate, we had q and a for about 30 minutes. Most of the audience, were clearly on our side, the side of science. And, and it was nice to have, that discussion among influentials, the international men's club.

Anthony Watts:

Very good. Very good. I also wanna mention to people that if you go to the app section on the website at clement@aglance.com, you can get not only the digital version of the book, but you can get a slide deck that you can use for your own presentations if you ever wanna present to anyone.

H. Sterling Burnett:

And the digital version of just the book is, we've added many, posts since then covering new topics. But I wanna go back to something you were showing about sea level rise there, James, and Anthony may wanna jump in on this. But if you look at you say, oh, well, maybe in the last decade, it, it's increased slightly. And I think that, the evidence suggests data that I've seen, and and Anthony wrote about this this week, is that what's happening there is subsidence. That these places, you you doubled the population of, of Florida, especially in its most populous coastal areas.

H. Sterling Burnett:

People aren't moving to central Florida. They're moving to the coast. And, it's built on soft land. It's built on reclaimed land. They they got rid of wetlands.

H. Sterling Burnett:

They reclaimed it. And so you've got subsidence, and you've got groundwater withdrawal that's contributing to, a a rapid subsidence.

James Taylor:

Absolutely. And, that is the likely reason because, again, you don't see any significant acceleration in the global data. One other point I'll note regarding the slides. And again, I think professor Wanless genuinely believes that we're facing the sea level crisis. I think he's doing his part for humanity by warning us.

James Taylor:

I think a lot of people make these warnings that simply aren't true, and sometimes you would just have to stand up for science. I think his heart's in the right place. I'm surprised that the data he presented ended coincidentally when the data started going against what he was saying. But it reminds me, and I won't describe motive to professor Wammas. But one of the first times that I debated this topic in a state legislature, I was in Montana.

James Taylor:

And, there's a climate scientist. I think he's at the University of Montana, Steve Running. And we were debating in front of the legislature. And but before I do these debates, I mean, I don't need really too much prep before him because I'm working this every day like you guys do. But I certainly, know quotes, know the data, know everything I need for a high profile debate like this.

James Taylor:

And what I noticed and and the Antarctica slides called this to mind as I was just presenting it. So Steve Running presents this slide a bit says Antarctic ice loss. And that this debate was probably in like 2,008 or something. And and he just very quickly, you know, he said that this is a dramatic ice loss. You see this chart that looks pretty crazy as far as, ice loss.

James Taylor:

And in my quick glance, I was like, okay, that's not the data that I'm used to seeing. That's not the chart of the trend. And I also noticed that this data ended in something like, I don't know, like 2,000 or whatever, but several years, at least several years before our debate. So I had my all my data in front of me, and I go and I look through it. Oh, yeah.

James Taylor:

That chart he showed, that wasn't for Antarctica as a whole. It was for the West Antarctic Peninsula, which of course is governed more by ocean currents and undersea volcanoes. And he said Antarctica, whereas the trend for Antarctica is just the opposite. And moreover even for just West Antarctica, he cut off his data several years before that presentation conveniently where that trend stopped. And so because I had all that information with me, I pointed that out and he just lost his mind that I would call him a climate scientist out on, you know, what appeared to be deliberately doctoring the data.

James Taylor:

But that's what they do. I mean, you always have to look closely at what they are presenting because oftentimes it's gonna be without attribution. They make this stuff up themselves, or they cut it off before the data works against them, or they're using a very short time period or something like that.

Anthony Watts:

I mean, the evidence hide the decline thing going on again. No.

H. Sterling Burnett:

The evidence for the West Antarctic ice sheet and the peninsula is, there's a lot of subsurface volcanic activity there that's melting it from underneath. This is published in peer reviewed journals. On net, Antarctica may be gaining ice because it's gaining ice in the interior in East Antarctica, and it's losing ice relatively rapidly in the smaller West Antarctic and Peninsula. But that's not driven by rising temperatures because the temperatures aren't rising. It's it's driven by subsurface activity.

James Taylor:

Yeah. Absolutely. And notice for my presentation, and it's not just because I'm a great presenter, it's because the data is there. Everything that I present, I'm presenting from NASA's own data, from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's own data, from data collected and reported in the peer reviewed science journals. It's not heartland data.

James Taylor:

It's not skeptic data. It's data data. And that trumps any predictions. When they say climate scientists say, scientists predict. That doesn't mean anything compared to objective real world scientific evidence that is overwhelmingly on the side of climate realists.

Anthony Watts:

Yes. Exactly. I wanna go since we're running a little late here, I wanna go to questions and, that our audience might have. Our producer, Andy, will bring up any questions. Engineer guy says, do we have any data on volcanic activity?

Anthony Watts:

We also know, little of underwater plate tectonics. How might underwater plate movements play in water temps and chemicals in the water? I don't really have any insight to that. I can't really touch on that question. Oh.

Anthony Watts:

I guess not.

James Taylor:

Yeah. Volcanic activity. I've seen papers that reach different conclusions. It's hard to measure precisely when you're going back, you know, very far into the past. It's it's one of those things that oftentimes climate alarmist will play around with to match their carbon dioxide theory.

James Taylor:

But essentially, if you get more volcanic activity, you're getting more sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere. Of course, you're getting more CO 2, but you have a cooling period afterwards. Note that we haven't had any real major volcanic eruptions in recent decades, whereas that had been the case in the sixties, the seventies, whatever else. And, you know,

Anthony Watts:

yeah. Yeah.

James Taylor:

And the tectonic plates are on a slower scale. Certainly the movement of the plates and and where the land masses are will affect whether we can have ice ages and glaciations. The fact that we have a continent over the South Pole and a pretty much enclosed sea over the North Pole is what you need for there to be an ice age like we're currently in an ice age. We've been in an ice age for 3000000 years. The ice age is about a 100000 years of advancing ice sheets, and then about 10000 years of welcome interruption.

James Taylor:

And we're at about the end of a 10000 year welcome interruption. But, all other things being equal, we are due overdue for the next ice age glaciation, which will be much more devastating than anything that you can say would happen from global warming.

H. Sterling Burnett:

For someone for anyone interested particularly in in volcanic activity, we have a policy adviser, a geologist, Arthur Viterito, who's done a lot of work on this. Joe Bustardi, who, who we've also had on the show, has done work on this siding. You know, you can look up his stuff. He he claims that a lot of the warming is driven, at least the ocean warming is driven by subsurface, volcanic volcanism Right. An increase.

H. Sterling Burnett:

But you you can look that up yourself.

Anthony Watts:

So we have a super chat here from Alan and Griffiths, who sent £5. Thank you. He says if Trump gets elected, please, god, will he be able to change the globalist net zero agenda? Well, he might be able to slow it down, throw some roadblocks in there, but these people, they don't listen to reason. They don't listen to facts.

Anthony Watts:

I mean, this is very obvious from what James just explained to us that, you know, they have a belief system, and the belief system is very, very hard to, dispel.

H. Sterling Burnett:

The only thing that might slow it is reality. I mean, it's it's slowing it in Europe right now. They backed off their new net zero climate goals, in light of all the protests that are going on over there. And in light of James's presentation to him recently, the the European Parliament backed off a climate policy they've been gonna enact. It turns out that coal is what saved Germany's electric grid this winter.

H. Sterling Burnett:

Reality is slapping some people in the face. So far, it has not had any impact on Joe Biden. But in a lot of other places, I mean, China's not fooled by this stuff. India's not fooled by this stuff.

Anthony Watts:

Yeah. I We have So let me

James Taylor:

let me just jump in here with a really cool story. First of all, thank you, Alan, for the donation. And please, if you're able to, if it's a small amount, if it's a large amount, it's your donations that keep the Heartland Institute running. And we don't get money from the federal government. We get essentially nothing from corporations and companies, just from individuals like yourselves.

James Taylor:

And, every little bit helps. If you're able to, if you appreciate this content, if you appreciate what we do, if you appreciate our impact, hit the button right now, and help us out because the more that we get, it goes directly into amplifying what we're doing. And I'll I'll tell you a little story about this. So, Alan, with your donation and then the question about net zero, we we had a wonderful experience here that I can convey. A few months ago, I was contacted by some friends of mine in the European Parliament.

James Taylor:

Roman Hyder and Harold Valenski. They are members of the European Parliament. They're from Austria. And they said, James, we are having a hearing on a bill. There's a bill in the EU.

James Taylor:

It's going to pass. They already have the votes. It's requiring that the entire EU get to net 0 by the year 2050. And although they already have the votes, we're hoping that you can come and speak at a special session of the parliament to at least put them on notice. Let them know that this climate change garbage is indeed garbage.

James Taylor:

Let them know that net zero, all of the impossibilities technically, all of the costs economically, all of the pain environmentally. Get it on the record. And I guess there's an outside chance. They already have the votes. They said the Hungarian delegation is the one that put them over the top.

James Taylor:

The Hungarians are generally conservative, but I was told the Hungarians figured it's going to happen anyway. Better to be seen as a friend by your overlords than to be seen as impeding their progress. So I went and gave my talk and my friends, from Austria made sure that the Hungarian parliament members were in the room. They made sure that there were about, oh, there's probably 10 or 20 members of the Hungarian media there. They set up personal one on one meetings with members of the Hungarian delegation before, during, and after my presentation.

James Taylor:

And what I did is I gave an abbreviated science presentation like this. I alerted them to Climate at a Glance, our book, and I walked them through the follies of net zero. And what happened was this was amazing. So that was March 13th. I think it was March 24th or 26th.

James Taylor:

There was news out of Europe. Everyone was shocked. They were stunned that the Hungarians had pulled their support for net zero and the bill was being pulled. They weren't even gonna have a vote on it. Whereas before they had all the votes locked up.

James Taylor:

That's the difference we can make by getting information out. It's a difference we can make not only by getting information out, but in Europe. I mean, what happens in Europe doesn't affect us here in the states too much in our pocketbooks. But it does show that here in the United States, we're not these mavericks. We're not these, you know, this, this renegade nation.

James Taylor:

Even in Europe, people are seeing the net zero is crazy, and the climate alarmist crisis simply does not exist. Momentum's on our side even with net zero. And it's, it's people like you that enable me to go to Europe and present at the parliament and get out climbing at a glance. You're making it possible too. So thank you.

Anthony Watts:

Alright. One more question. Engineer guy. And how long have we had real NASA satellite data? It goes back to 1979.

Anthony Watts:

That was the beginning of the polar orbiting satellites. Doctor Roy Spencer starts his data at 1979. Prior to that, all we had was weather satellite imagery. We didn't have any measurement of temperature. Alright.

Anthony Watts:

I think that sums it up. James, thank you for a fantastic presentation. Sterling, thank you for your expert commentary. And, Andy, our producer, thank you for, corralling all this and making it look good. I just wanna thank our viewers as well and say, thanks for joining us.

Anthony Watts:

Thanks for those donations, and thanks for your support. Remember to visit our website, climate ataglance.com, climate realism.com, energy at a glance.com, and, of course, my website, what's up with that dot com. I'm Anthony Watts, senior fellow for environment and climate at the Institute, wishing you all a great Friday and a fantastic weekend. Bye bye.

H. Sterling Burnett:

He's a lion's dog face point soldier.